Commutist interview: Joy of X author Steven Strogatz

Math is everywhere, and it’s Cornell professor Steven Strogatz‘s mission to show you how cool and beautiful that is. His new book The Joy of X walks readers through the math found in our everyday lives in a straightforward, readable manner. But what piqued my interest was that The Harvard Business Review called his math columns for The New York Times “must reads for entrepreneurs and executives who grasp that mathematics is now the ‘lingua franca’ of serious business analysis.” I chatted with Strogatz by phone about the math startup founders should know, the new areas of math being created by big data and how depressing the math curriculum for young students is these days.